Sick Bugs
by minixoxmya
Summary: Sometimes when you're sick, all your need is a comfortable bed and the one you love!


Sick Bugs

There were some days that were just meant to be spent in bed and for seventeen year old Aria Montgomery, today was definitely one of those days.

She groaned as she rolled over in her boyfriend's deliciously comfortable bed. Normally, she would have rolled over and snuggled into his warm body but today was anything but normal.

"Oh god, I think I'm dying." She groaned; her whole body ached, her throat hurt, her head was pounding and she could hardly keep her tired eyes open.

Her boyfriend, Ezra Fitz, chuckled to himself from beside her…trust his Aria to be so overly dramatic first thing in the morning.

In the time that he had known her he had quickly learnt that she did not do sick very well. It had only been a couple of months since her last episode of flu but, with it being winter in chilly Pennsylvania, there were plenty of bugs to go around.

As he turned over in bed to face her, he rested his hand against her forehead. She did feel hot, he thought to himself, maybe she really was sick?

"Are you sure you should be going to school today Babe?" Ezra asked, kicking the blanket off them to cool Aria down and pulling her tiny body into his arms.

He always marveled at how tiny she was, she was so sassy and headstrong and yet he could easily bundle her up into his arms.

"School? I can't even get out of bed." Aria groaned again, trying desperately to snuggle closer to Ezra and ease her aches and pains.

She loved his bed and his apartment; she wished she could spend more time there but, with only her mother on board with the relationship, she couldn't afford to anger her father unnecessarily.

"Do you want me to drive you to your mom's?" Ezra asked, getting out of bed to turn on the coffee machine, as he did every morning.

Aria contemplated the idea for a moment but, as soon as her brain realized that that would involve getting out of bed and getting dressed, she quickly vetoed the idea completely.

"Nope! I'm staying right here. Could you call her though? Someone needs to tell school I'm sick and I really don't think that person should be you." Aria half giggled at her own quick wit, but quickly regretted it as her giggles turned into harsh coughs.

Despite Ella Montgomery being somewhat of a supporter of the couple, Ezra still felt hugely uncomfortable talking to her about anything concerning Aria. It made him nervous inside and he would do anything to avoid it but, as he looked over at his pale girlfriend who had buried herself into a nest of his sheets, he realized that he didn't really have a choice this time.

"_Hello?"_ Ella's voice answered the phone after just two rings, leaving Ezra no time to back out of the conversation.

"Ella…hi, it's Ezra."

"_Oh…Ezra, is everything okay?" _

"Actually no, Aria stayed here last night and this morning she's developed the flu again. She wanted me to let you know so that you could inform school that she would be absent today." Ezra tried to be as professional as possible, realizing himself how stupid he sounded as he talked to his possible future mother in law.

Ella frowned on the other end of the line; she knew within her own mind that Aria stayed at Ezra's apartment on a regular basis but hearing it out loud was something quite different.

"_Is she okay? Do you need me to come and pick her up?"_

"I offered to drop her off at your apartment but she insisted on staying here. Do you want to talk to her?" Ezra offered, knowing how worried Ella would be about her only daughter.

Ezra wasn't naïve to the fact that Ella wasn't totally comfortable with Aria staying overnight at his apartment. She was still three weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday, but he hoped that with Aria as sick as she was, Ella wouldn't bring up the touchy subject.

As Ezra climbed onto the bed he passed the phone to a very drowsy Aria.

"Momma?"

"_Hi Baby, how are you feeling?"_

"Like I'm dying."

"_Oh Honey, are you sure you don't want to come over here?"_

"No it's okay. I'm really sleepy and I have everything I need here. Anyway, Ezra is home at one thirty, he'll take care of me."

Ella couldn't deny that that was the truth, if there was anything that Ezra Fitz did well it was taking care of Aria. She could recall Aria recounting many stories of times when things were bad and Ezra had stepped up and stuck with her.

As she handed the phone back to Ezra she rolled over and snuggled back down. She loved his bed so much; her side was the closest to the brick wall of the apartment, it helped her to feel cozy and safe knowing that Ezra's strong body was protecting her from anyone who might creep into the little apartment.

With everything that had happened with A, could you blame her?

With the A team; consisting of Melissa, CeCe, Garrett and Mona, finally out of the picture for good, the girls were finally free. Melissa had runaway to London, CeCe was serving a length sentence in jail, Mona had been admitted to a psychiatric unit in New York and Garrett as they all knew, had been killed on the Halloween train.

The relief that it was finally over for good had been huge for the girls; as the whole town recoiled in shock from the revelations of blackmail and torture that had been happening right under their noses, the girls quietly allowed themselves to relax into a new way of life.

They were finally starting to move on.

"I'll see you later Beautiful, sleep tight." Ezra kissed Aria's lips lightly before leaving for work. He hated leaving her like that but he had to cling onto the fact that in four short hours, he would be back with her again.

At fifteen minutes after two, a little later that he had planned to be, Ezra opened the door to his apartment expecting to see his sick girlfriend still tucked into bed. Instead it seemed she had dragged the duvet to the couch and had fallen asleep there instead.

On the coffee table there were several girlie magazines, three seasons of some teen show that he had never heard of and an empty take out coffee cup. She couldn't have possibly gone out, could she? She still looked awful, her skin pale and her breathing labored.

"Babe?" He whispered softly as he picked up her feet and sat down on the couch, placing her feet safely in his lap.

Aria stirred and opened her eyes, had she been asleep for all that time?

"What time is it?" She asked, the last she remembered was falling asleep after sipping on the last of her coffee and that had been just after ten am.

"It's two twenty, did you go out?" Ezra asked, still curious to know how all of the items found their way into his apartment.

As Aria sat up she began to piece together what had been reality and what had been a hazy medication induced dream.

"Hmm no, the girls came over during free period to check on me." She responded and she snuggled into Ezra's side, she didn't often miss him when they were apart but today she had missed him a lot.

At first the idea of four teenage girls in his apartment made Ezra very nervous; but each time Aria and the girls had used his apartment as a hang out destination he slowly became more comfortable with the notion. By now it was almost an everyday occurrence and Ezra didn't even think twice when she mentioned that they had been over.

"I'm just going to take a shower, why don't you go back to sleep for a little bit?" Ezra asked before settling her back onto the couch and heading towards the bathroom.

Aria had to admit the sleep sounded like a really good idea, she had taken so much cough medicine and so many flu remedies that's he knew falling asleep would not be a problem.

She had just drifted off into a peaceful slumber when she was awoken by the noise of someone rummaging through the items on the coffee table beside her.

As she opened her eyes she could still hear the shower running in the bathroom, so she knew it couldn't have been Ezra. As her eyes focused back into the land of the awake she spotted a girl with long curly blonde hair facing away from her.

"Alison?" She asked immediately, the strong scent of a specific perfume filled the room and she knew immediately who it belonged to.

The girl turned around slowly.

It was Alison. It was definitely Alison.

"Hi Sweetie, nice place." Alison commented as she continued to search through some papers, knocking over a bottle of painkillers that were sitting on the coffee table.

Are shook her head; trying to figure out if she was asleep or awake, she even pinched herself and as a searing pain shot through her skin she knew she had to be awake.

"What are you doing here? They told us you were dead, they had DNA evidence that that was you in that body bag." Aria's questioning was frantic as everything she thought she knew began to seem like lies all over again, she had to be dreaming…this had to be some horrible nightmare.

Alison chuckled, as she always did, grabbing a piece of paper from between the pages of a magazine that Hanna had brought over earlier in the day.

"Do I look dead to you?" Alison flashed her famous toothy smile as she turned and walked out of the apartment.

What the hell had just happened? What the hell had she just seen?

"Aria?" A soft voice called causing Aria's eyes to shoot open as she took a sharp intake of breath.

Had it all been a medicine included dream?

Frantically she glanced over at the coffee table; hoping to see it exactly as she left it but her hopes were dashed.

The pills were scattered across the glass surface, the magazines were all over the place and the sickly sweet smell of her perfume still lingered in the air.

Alison had been there.

"Ali was here, she was just here!" Aria screeched, leaping up from the couch and searching for the proof she knew everyone would be asking for.

Ezra frowned; he had been witness to many scenes like this when 'A' was still around, he had witnessed his girlfriend and her friends go out of their minds searching for the answers they so desperately needed.

But they had all the answers.

They knew the truth.

Alison was gone.

"How much of this have you had?" Ezra asked as he picked up a half empty bottle of medicated cough medicine and placed it on the kitchen counter.

Aria stopped her searching and frowned, did Ezra not believe her? She knew what she had seen was real, pills don't just scatter themselves.

"You don't believe me do you?" She asked quietly, she couldn't believe that of all people Ezra thought she was crazy.

Putting down the bottle, Ezra crossed the small apartment and wrapped Aria tightly in his arms, pressing kisses to her hair reassuringly.

"What I believe is that you're tired and you have a fever and you mind is playing tricks on you, because you lost a dear friend and you're still grieving for her." Ezra tried to sooth Aria, hoping with all he had that his words would not be misinterpreted.

Unfortunately Aria's tired flu stricken brain was telling her that Ezra had just called her crazy. There wasn't very far you could run in the little apartment so; she pushed out of his arms and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her as she went.

After several minutes of trying to get her to come out, Ezra gave up. She needed space to process her thoughts and her dreams and so, with a mission in mind, he picked up his keys and quietly left the apartment.

Aria wiped her tears as she sat on the couch waiting for Ezra to come back, he had been gone for half an hour and she had no idea where he had gone or if he was coming back.

Finally the sound his keys turning in the lock broke the tense silence inside the apartment. Aria tried to cover her tears but she knew it was useless, Ezra knew her better than anyone in the world.

"Hey, hey, hey, why the tears?" Ezra asked immediately, putting the bags down on the kitchen counter before rushing over to Aria and bundling her up in his arms.

Fresh tears began to pour from Aria's eyes, she had no idea why but she knew she was powerless to stop them.

"I thought you were gone." She whispered, she knew it was stupid but her brain was still cloudy and her judgement was seriously lacking.

Ezra realized perhaps he should have left her a note but he hadn't thought about it until he was stood outside Lucky Leon's buying Aria's favorite strawberry milkshake cupcakes.

"I went and got all your favorites, I know you haven't eaten today." Aria smiled up at Ezra through her tears; he really was an amazing boyfriend, he was beyond any vision she had had of the perfect prince charming.

The moment she had met him in that dingy college bar had been the only moment since Alison's disappearance that fate had been on her side.

Aria was quiet as they ate dinner; she had so much on her mind she could hardly think straight. The experience of earlier that evening had awoken memories within her that she thought she had pushed away.

"I really miss her." Aria spoke completely out of the blue.

Ezra wasn't surprised in the slightest; he knew after what had happened earlier that they would need to have an Alison talk at some point that evening. He wished that the memories and the pain Aria experience would stop haunting her, but he knew the only person who could really take it all away was gone forever.

"Alison?" He asked, confirming his suspicions before embarking on the conversation about Aria's lost friend.

"I know she was a bitch, worse than a bitch, but she was one of my best friends. I just miss her so much. That dream I had today felt so real, I thought for a moment that maybe she really wasn't gone, that maybe they had made a mistake. I had this moment of hope that it had all just been a horrible dream and she had never disappeared but then I woke up and none of it was true." Tears made tracks down her cheeks as she listened to the words she had just spoken; a huge part of her hated Alison but the rest of her missed her so much that it caused her physical pain.

Would she ever get over Alison's death?

Ezra scooted closer to Aria and wrapped her tightly into his protective arms again. No one should have to go through what Aria and the girls had been through. They had seen more death, more corruption and more deceit before their eighteenth birthdays than most people would see in a lifetime.

"Why don't you take a hot bubble bath?" Ezra suggested, remembering spying Aria's coconut scented bath bubbles when he had taken a shower that afternoon.

Aria nodded defeated, watching as Ezra made his way into the bathroom to start running her a hot bath.

Once the bath was run and at exactly the right temperature, Ezra led Aria into the candlelit bathroom. He was about to leave when Aria grabbed his hand.

"Please get in with me? I'm really full from dinner, really sleepy and still totally drugged on cough medicine. If I fall asleep in this tub alone there's a good chance I'm going to drown…and that will not look good for you." Aria joked, pleased that her sense of humour had come through the flu relatively unharmed.

Ezra had been sold at 'get in with me', he didn't need a reason and he definitely didn't need to be asked twice. His relationship with Aria had been intimate for a while; it was now the only part of their relationship that remained a secret from everyone not featured on the 'need to know' list.

Aria settled back into Ezra's arms; allowing the bubbles to settle on her skin. She loved being with him like this; there was nothing sexual about it, it was simply the feeling of being so close to someone with no physical barriers that felt so amazing.

Gently she rolled over so that her chest was pressing against her, her cheek laying on the his chest as the water lapped around her face gently.

"I love you." She whispered.

All the feelings of illness, stress, loss and fear all melting away as she listened to Ezra's gentle heartbeat inside his chest.

All that she needed was right there in that moment.

It didn't matter that Alison was gone and wasn't ever coming back.

She had Ezra, she had love.

All that was left was them and she neither wanted nor needed anything else.

**Fin.**


End file.
